Randy StradleyCritiques

The original series and "The Web" are still quite stellar. The rest of the books are a bit uneven or goofy ("Eternal"). Still, it's nice to see some 90s era panels hold up quite well.

It doesnt have to be Shakespeare, but a good premise is spoiled a bit by the rambling pointlessness of most of the marines. The art is good but makes weird choices in terms of the bulkiness of the hunters or Machiko's sudden 7ft physique in armour.

Randy Stradley and Davidé Fabbri’s Star Wars: Jedi Council: Acts of War collects all four issues of the Dark Horse comic series of the same name. The story, set 33 years before the Battle of Yavin and just prior to the events of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, focuses on a Jedi taskforce under Mace Windu’s leadership facing the threat of the Yinchorri, a species encroaching on others’ territory that possesses immunity to Force mind-control and cortosis shields. Unbeknownst to the Jedi, the Yinchorri act with the hidden support of Darth Sidious, whose apprentice, Darth Maul, wishes he could join in the fray rather than observe from the sidelines. Stradley and Fabbri’s story features some great character development for Mace Windu, Plo Koon, and others, while introducing charismatic Jedi Master Micah Giiett and offering a glimpse of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi prior to the events of Episode I. It helps to add context to the events prior to the prequel films while personalizing some of the lesser-known Jedi in advance of Episode II. Stradley introduced a minor character, Soon Bayts, in this story as a joke on editor Sue Rostoni, who would add the title “Master” before any Jedi’s name. Bayts appeared one final time in the limited series, Star Wars: Obsession, in which writer Haden Blackman finally displayed his name as Master Bayts. Though this story is no longer considered canon, elements of the plot recall part of the premise of the new High Republic series, particularly in its focus on lesser-known Jedi.

A nice quick read that takes place right after the Clone Wars as the Emperor and Darth Vader are consolidating power. One of the last Jedi and his captain survive one of the last stands of the Separatists. Yes, the Jedi was fighting for the Separatists, having been forced to seek their help with the clones turn on him due to Order 66. The captain's wife and daughter are taken as prisoners and to be sold as slaves, and it is up to the Jedi and him to try to find them. In the meantime, we have Vader coming more into his role as Dark Lord of the Sith and the Emperor's enforcer. Slowly for him, certain realities are starting to sink in. If some of the Darth Vader stuff seems familiar, some of it does come out of Luceno's novel Dark Lord Rising. Personally, I found the Vader parts compelling, but then again, I read the novel too, which I did enjoy. The main story was pretty good, though it seemed to run a bit fast at the end, as if the author was trying to wrap it up nicely at the end, so to speak. Anyhow, this is the first volume of a series, and I will probably seek out others since I do like reading Star Wars material, especially when it takes place in smaller settings and stories like this one. The book is a nice, quick read, but at times, I did wish it had a bit more depth.

Quick impression: I continue enjoying this series. As I mentioned for the previous volume, some of the tales I have read before, but this one has some new ones to me as well. Overall entertaining.

(Full review on my blog later)

Fun adventure in the time of the "Legends." Lots of different episodes, and the introduction of the nefarious "Black Sun" criminal syndicate.

This volume draws some of the threads of Dark Times together as the series comes to an end. Finally reunited with the Uhumele, Dass Jennir plots an ambush for the mysterious Darth Vader. There's even a callback to the original story in Clone Wars, Volume 9 from which Dark Times sprang.

It's fine. I liked the resolution to what was going on with the Verpine Jedi, and Wheatley's art is good, even though it's not as good as it was. Darth Vader and the Empire aren't quite the inevitable force they ought to be, but I think my biggest issue is less with something Dark Times did and more with something it didn't.

The earlier volumes, I think, were pointing at something unique, asking what it means to be a Jedi in dark times? The answer A Spark Remains gives us is that it's not all that different. Which is a good message, one supposes, but maybe too pat. I also think Bomo Greenbark and the Uhumele crew ultimately ended up squandered; after volume 3, they didn't contribute very much to the main thrust of the series any more. Greenbark was originally an ordinary guy crushed by war and spat out, and I liked that. But here's, he's just another guy on the ship. I wish his character had ended up being as important to the series as Jennir's, which is what the earlier volumes had implied would be the case.

All in all, I enjoyed Dark Times. It's no Knights of the Old Republic or Legacy, but it is a valuable reminder of the kind of interesting smaller-scale side stories about "ordinary" people in the Star Wars universe that Dark Horse was good at.

I don't know if Dark Times was intended to end in its seventh volume, or if Dark Horse losing the Star Wars license brought it to a premature end, but this volume makes me think it was intentionally winding down. Fire Carrier picks up a thread abandoned since volume two, as we revisit the Jedi younglings hiding from the Purge with Master K'Kruhk. This seems like the kind of thing you make sure to tie off when you know you're running out of time, but maybe a side story is the kind of thing you do when you want Doug Wheatley to draw your main arcs but know he can only draw six issues every two years.

In any case, misleadingly Darth Vader-focused cover aside, this is one of the best Dark Times stories, and probably the one that most feels like the series was mean to be-- the last couple Jennir-focused volumes made it more Jedi-centric. But here, like in some of the early Uhumele-focused stories like Parallels and Vector, it's about decent people trying to hang on in a universe arrayed against the very concept of decency. And not just K'Kruhk and his Jedi charges, but also ordinary Imperial officers. There's a whole sideplot about Imperial officers, who were quite recently Republic officers, and how they're trying to make the new government live up to their expectations. The Empire was supposed to be something and it's not, but they want it to anyway.

I enjoyed it a lot. The kind of story that makes you think it could go anywhere (and it does go some dark places), and is all the better for it. There's even a nice tie-in to Legacy, connecting two of Dark Horse's better Star Wars ongoings together.

Darth Vader has been a background presence throughout Dark Times, rarely directly interacting with Our Heroes, but lurking off somewhere else, sometimes as frustrated as they are with the new state of the galaxy. In this volume, Dass Jennir sets off to return Ember, the brothel manager he met in the last volume, to her home planet, only to end up crash-landing. The two must work together to survive while being hunted by a bounty hunter, and while the Uhumele crew searches for Jennir with the aid of a Verpine Jedi. It's not the best volume of Dark Times, but it is enjoyable enough.

I'm not entirely convinced by the Jennir/Ember romance, which mostly seems to be based on her being female and willing and him being lonely and needy, but the basic premise of the story is sound. I like Jennir's pretty consistent "hero" moments; it's a good demonstration of the constant commitment to goodness in difficult circumstances that the Jedi life requires, and for Jennir, the Dark Times seem to be providing some clarity that his earlier life lacked. The galaxy might be worse off, but he seems to be more himself than he ever was. There's a good twist as regards the bounty hunter, too. I do wish it didn't seem like Bomo Greenbark was fading into the background, though; his ordinariness was one of the original drivers of the series, but he's just kind of becoming yet another member of the Uhumele crew.

I like Wheatley's artwork, but I liked his art better in the earlier volumes of this series. It was more rounded and 3-D then, to good effect.

With this volume of Dark Times, I hit the point where I fell behind as the series was coming out, so everything from here onwards is new to me. Blue Harvest shifts the focus away from the crew of the Uhumele and Darth Vader (who both appear for just a couple pages), back to ex-Jedi Dass Jennir, who we last saw in volume one. It's okay stuff, but predictable, reminding me a little bit of a western, a little bit of noir.

Jennir is asked by a woman to help clear her town of gangs; of course it's a set-up (though not one I entirely understood), but also of course he manages it anyway. It doesn't have the painful darkness that made some of the earlier volumes of Dark Times work. You don't feel that Jennir is being pushed to the limit of his morality as he has been in the past. Still, I enjoyed it; it has nice touches, like Jennir inheriting the droid of a man he killed, so the droid is always grumbling at him about it, and the local fisherman named simply "Fish" who loyally aids Jennir. I'm over halfway through Dark Times now, so hopefully the series ends on a high note.

I initially didn't like the title, but a commenter on my blog helped me understand it's a double reference to Star Wars and to Dashiell Hammett, and it kind of is a Hammett novel transposed into the Star Wars universe, so I like it now.

Terrible writing and so-so artwork makes this a very poor read. Not recommended for anyone except maybe the most diehard of Star Wars fans.

This volume contains a variety of stories by different authors and artists with Luke Skywalker as the main character. I found this for $30 and decided to give it a try since it was a significant discount from the original price.

It looks great on the shelf and it feels like it is very well put together. However, I do prefer more continuity in my books. The stories here are in chronological order however, there are many years and events unmentioned between the stories so overall it was a bit uneven.

Glad all the old Marvel comics were collected in Dark Horse's Omnibus format before the license went back to Marvel. With what Marvel is going to charge for the reprinted "Legends" comics I don't think these vintage comics will be worth purchasing in the future.

The stories are a little strange and the art isn't great, but they probably kept many fans entertained while they waited between movies. I always assumed that the majority of the old Marvel comics took place before the original Star Wars. This collection spans from between the Empire Strikes Back to after The Return of the Jedi.

It includes the adaptation to The Return of the Jedi and the art for this four issue arc is a step above everything else in this volume. The adaptation also contains minor scenes and dialog that were either cut or not included in the movie.

Once again it is made clear that these stories take place during the "dark times". Something new found at the end of this arc is hope.

The back story of Biggs and art by Doug Wheatley is great. The introduction to Janek (Tank) as an imperial who wants to do the right thing is interesting. Unfortunately he never learns that he is on the wrong side and never manages to redeem himself.

I prefer Kir Kanos over Darth Maul and Boba Fett. There's the element of danger but a code of honor behind the action of the last member of the Imperial Guard.

The art in Dark Times Volume Two is, in my opinion, not as good as in Volume One but it is still decent. The parallel stories--one plot follows Bomo Greenbark and the crew of the Uhumel, while the other follows Master K'Krukh and some Jedi younglings who survived Order 66--move along well, with plenty of action and introspection for Bomo and K'Krukh. Jedi Dass Jennir is nowhere to be found in this volume, but his presence is not sorely missed.

Dark Times have indeed come to a galaxy far, far away. The Empire is ascendant, and after Order 66 has been implemented, it is a bad time to be a Jedi. This book captures the feeling of those times. The artwork is on the realistic side (even when the characters are various humanoid/animal-ish aliens) and the coloring is subdued and natural, both a step away from the more colorful, more animated artwork you will see in other comics, Knights of the Old Republic, for example. Douglas Wheatley manages to capture expressions on alien faces very well. For instance, Bomo Greenbark's stunned expression when he learns his family has been sold into slavery by the Empire. Basically, I can't say enough good things about the art in this first volume of Dark Times. The story is also compelling. The time is soon after Anakin Skywalker has been transformed into Darth Vader, and even though his face is literally a mask, you can still tell that he is coming to grips with his actions and his new role as a servant of his master, the Emperor. There are a number of brief flashbacks to the prequel movies, which act as a nice connector between the Darth Vader from the original movies and the prequels. These are Dark Times for Vader, certainly. And for Jedi Dass Jennir, who must hide what he is due to Order 66, he must come to grips with what it means to be a Jedi (or not) in this new era.

This is not a happy story, as the title implies, but it is a riveting story combined with good artwork, and introduces a slew of interesting characters that I want to learn more about.

I have to admit I was thinking whether to buy this book or not for quite some time now - taking into account all the harsh critics it got.

Finally I decided to go with it and believe me - it was worth it. Story starts where the previous story arc finished. After Karnor Jax was killed in duel with Kir Kanos, Empire was left leaderless - or better yet they have a ruling Council buy they bicker and are generally uncapable of coming to any common ground.

Suddenly mysterious murders start to take place and one by one leaders of the Council are getting killed. Of course main suspect is again Kanos (after he publicly declared Council as traitors to the Emperors cause). But thats not everything - we have Black Sun criminals working on taking control of Imperial council [and to achieve that they work with the Hutt crime syndicate]. And of course there we have a mysterious alien Nom Anor (of the later Yuuzhang Vong fame) also plotting around Imperial Council....

Lots of twists and turns but nevertheless interesting story. Unfortunately it feels like it was left to hung unfinished - hopefully third part will get finished sometime in the future.

Art is so-so, great at times and not so great at other, but generally acceptable.

Recommended.½

Forget the awful movies, these stories are much, much better.

After reading the first volume of Dark Times, I was a little tepid-- another Jedi on the run dealing with the Dark Side? Quinlan Vos, Ferus Olin, and many others have been there and done that. Fortunately, the second volume has confounded my expectations-- said Jedi is not even a character even more! Instead we get Bomo Greenbark and the crew of the Uhumele, just trying to make their way in the strange new world that is the Galactic Empire. The best thing about this book is the sense that somewhere, somehow the world has gone horribly wrong, and our poor heroes can't do a thing about it but try to make it until the next day. Greenbark rocks, and the rest of the Uhumele's crew is growing on me, especially Crys and Ratty. (The ship has a few too many crewmembers, but Harrison seems to have recognized that, as this story kills several of them off!) There's also a side story about K'Kruhk. It's always nice to see his sweet hat, but it's otherwise pretty forgettable.

added February 2019:
My thoughts are not too dissimilar on rereading. I perhaps liked it slightly less than my old review indicates, as the story is more action-y and less atmospheric than would be optimal. Probably this is partially due to the replacement of Douglas Wheatley on art by Dave Ross and Luis Antonio. I don't know which of the two draw which parts, but one of them is more cheesecake-y when it comes to the main cast's lone human woman. On the other hand, I liked the K'Kruhk side story more; it felt tense in that I genuinely didn't know (and didn't remember) if the kids he was trying to protect would survive. (The previous volume had a kid get eaten, and in Revenge of the Sith kids get murdered, so clearly nothing is off limits for Star Wars at this point.) I do like Bomo a lot.

I expected to like this new series a lot, spinning off as it did from the very good last volume of the Clone Wars comics, Endgame. Unfortunately, this volume never clicked with me for some reason. There's nothing I can point to, really, but there is a feeling of seen-it-before, with a Jedi on the run in a rag-tag ship, in danger of falling to the dark side-- it's Knights of the Old Republic mixed with Quinlan Vos's arc in Clone Wars, except not as good as either. One review I read online said that the story Endgame set up-- a Jedi leading an army of former Separatists against the Empire-- was more interesting than the one we actually got, and I agree. Still, the art is very, very nice, and the twilight gloom that arrives with the coming of the Empire is well portrayed. I think I'll pick up the second volume and see how I like it then.

added January 2019:
I read the first three volumes of Dark Times-- which chronicles the separate adventures of a couple Jedi, a group of smugglers, and Darth Vader in the months after Revenge of the Sith-- as they came out in the late 2000s, but fell behind after that; the series lasted four more. I finally got to reading volume four, but decided I ought to reread the earlier volumes so I would have some context. (First, I actually reread a two-issue story in Clone Wars, Volume 9 that some of the Dark Times characters debuted in.)

On reread, I actually liked it more than the above indicates, maybe because I knew to not have those expectations based on Endgame anymore, and maybe also because since I read it right after Endgame, the continuity of Dass Jennir's character arc was more obvious. Jennir isn't in danger of falling to the Dark Side, as I said above; it's more than in the era of the Empire, the ideals that sustained his entire life just ceased to be applicable. He's not choosing evil, but moving into a world where there is no opportunity to choose good. This is a very dark comic book (slavery and cannibalism are key features!), but it takes good advantage of its setting to tell a unique kind of Star Wars story, and it does so very well, in large part thanks to Douglas Wheatley's exceptional artwork.

(Since the original comic came out, it's been revealed that "Welles Hartley," credited writer of Endgame, and "Mick Harrison," credited writer of volumes 2-4 of Dark Times, are in fact both pen names for editor Randy Stradley, used I guess to disguise how much of Dark Horse's Star Wars output he wrote himself. But for some reason this book credits the story to one of those pseudonyms and the script to the other! In this interview from 2007, artist Wheatley even keeps up the subterfuge by saying it's the first project he's ever worked on with two writers, and it makes for lively conference calls. This has bothered me ever since the Hartley/Harrison revelation, and I want to know why it was done this way.)